07/12/2022
Honda war immer seiner Zeit voraus. Es gab eine Zeit, da brachte HONDA 20 neue Motorräder im Jahr auf den Markt.
Respekt!
Still one of the maddest ideas Honda had, oval pistons!
First seen on the NR500, a glorious failure but ahead of its time, and then the NR750 road bike!
Honda built what was basically a small V8 to race the 500cc two strokes, only to be told no. So they just decided to make oval pistons to turn two pistons into one so it was 'technically' a four cylinder four stroke.
It revved to the moon (22k rpm!) but achieved precisely nothing. Honda admitted defeat and went back to two strokes, winning everything there was to win before the rules were changed to allow 990cc four strokes to compete in 2002.
There was a rule when the four strokes came back in that you couldn't have oval pistons (wonder why? 🤔) so Honda just made a V5 instead and wiped the floor with everyone a different way.
Far cry from today where Honda are really behind..
